Thom Yorke

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Thom Yorke:
Thomas Edward Yorke (born 7 October 1968) is an English musician who is the lead singer and principal songwriter of the alternative rock group Radiohead. As a singer, Yorke is recognisable by his distinctive tenor voice, vibrato, frequent use of falsetto and ability to reach, and sustain, notes over a wide vocal range. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but he has also played drums and bass guitar (notably during the Kid A and Amnesiac sessions). In July 2006, he released his debut solo album, The Eraser.

Yorke is frequently cited among the greatest singers in popular music; in 2005, Blender magazine named Yorke the 18th greatest singer of all time,[6] and in 2008 he was ranked #66 in Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Singers of all Time."

Yorke was born on 7 October, 1968, in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. At birth, his left eye was fixed shut; the doctors determined that the eye was paralyzed and that the condition was permanent. Yorke's parents took him to an eye specialist, who suggested a muscle graft. Yorke underwent five eye operations before he was six years old.[8] Yorke's father, a chemical equipment salesman, was hired by a firm in Scotland shortly after his son's birth and the family lived there until Yorke was seven. During this time Yorke had to wear a patch over his eye.[9] He has stated that the last surgery was "botched," giving him a drooping eyelid.[10]

Yorke's family moved frequently; Yorke would move from school to school, where classmates teased him because of his eye problems.[11] The family finally settled in Oxfordshire in 1978.[12] Yorke received his first guitar when he was seven, inspired by guitarist Brian May in a live performance with his band Queen.[10] By age eleven he had joined his first band and written his first song.[13] He attended the all boys public school Abingdon where he met future band members Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway, Colin Greenwood and Colin's younger brother, Jonny Greenwood.[14] Yorke and his friends formed a band named On A Friday, as Friday was the only day on which the members were allowed to rehearse.[10] Yorke, in this early line up, played guitar and provided vocals, and was already developing his songwriting and lyrical skills. Yorke, speaking about music's influence on him as a schoolboy, said, "School was bearable for me because the music department was separate from the rest of the school. It had pianos in tiny booths, and I used to spend a lot of time hanging around there after school."[15]

After leaving school, Yorke postponed going to university for a year. During that time he worked a few jobs and was involved in a car accident that made him wary of any kind of mechanized transport.[16] Yorke left Oxford to study at the University of Exeter in late 1988, which as a result put On a Friday on hiatus aside from holiday break rehearsals.[17] Whilst at Exeter, Yorke worked as a DJ at Guild nights in the Lemon Grove and played briefly with the band Headless Chickens.[18] Yorke also met Rachel Owen, whom he began dating.

On A Friday resumed activity in 1991 as the members were finishing their degree courses. Now relocated to Oxford, they signed to Parlophone and changed their name to Radiohead. Around this time, Yorke said he "hit the self-destruct button pretty quickly"; he would drink alcohol heavily, which resulted in him randomly cutting his hair off and being unable to perform onstage due to intoxication.[20] Radiohead first gained notice with the worldwide hit single "Creep," which later appeared on the band's 1993 debut album Pablo Honey. Yorke admitted later that the success had enlarged his ego; he tried to project himself as a rock star, which included bleaching his hair and wearing extensions. He said, "When I got back to Oxford I was unbearable . . . [A]s soon as you get any success you disappear up your own arse and lost it forever."[21]

By the time of their second album, The Bends (1995), the band, through frequent touring and greater attention to detail in the recording studio, had picked up a large cult fan base and had begun to receive wider critical acclaim. After the album's release, the American group R.E.M picked Radiohead as its opening act for the European leg of their tour.[22] Whilst on tour Yorke and R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe became close friends; in particular, Stipe gave him advice on how to deal with the demands of being in a rock band.[23] During the production of the band's third album, OK Computer (1997), all five members had differing opinions and equal production roles, with Yorke having "the loudest voice," according to guitarist Ed O'Brien.[24] After the album was finished, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood contributed to the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack along with other musicians under the moniker Venus in Furs.[25] Upon release, OK Computer was heralded as a landmark album by nearly every publication that reviewed it, establishing Radiohead as one of the leading alternative rock acts of the 1990s. But Yorke was ambivalent about this success. Some of these concerns were voiced in the documentary film Meeting People Is Easy, which focused on the period. Yorke has explained in various interviews that he dislikes the "mythology" within the rock genre, and hates the media's obsession with celebrities.[26]

Yorke and the band adopted a more radical approach on 2000's Kid A and 2001's Amnesiac, processing vocals, obscuring lyrics, and departing from rock for a more varied musical landscape including electronic, jazz and avant-garde classical influences. Expanding Radiohead's sales whilst earning acclaim for experimentation, the albums also divided fans and critics. In 2003, Radiohead released their sixth album, Hail to the Thief, a blend of rock and electronica that Yorke described as a reaction to the events of the early 2000s and newfound fears for his children's future, though he denied a specific political intent. The band has continued to tour, and in 2005 they undertook recording sessions for a seventh album, In Rainbows, released as a digital DRM-free download in October 2007.

Yorke released his solo album The Eraser in 2006. Produced by Nigel Godrich and featuring cover art by Stanley Donwood, it was released on the independent label XL Recordings. Yorke described the album as "more beats and electronics" and denied that it meant he was leaving Radiohead, saying, "I want no crap about me being a traitor or whatever splitting up blah blah... this was all done with their blessing."[27] The Eraser reached number 3 in the UK in its first week and number 2 in the United States, Canada and Australia, as well as number 9 on the Irish charts. The album was on the prestigious Mercury Prize shortlist and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.

Yorke rarely plays as a solo act, having never embarked on a solo tour. He has sometimes played short acoustic sets of Radiohead songs in the band's webcasts and television appearances, and occasionally on his own at rallies. In 2006 he performed stripped-down versions of several songs from The Eraser ("Analyse," "The Clock, " "Skip Divided" and "Cymbal Rush") on radio and TV programmes, and since then he has played and sung "Cymbal Rush" as an encore at some Radiohead concerts. In July 2009, Yorke played a rare solo gig at the Latitude Festival in England.